


A Heavy Bag's Life is on the Line

by wargoddess



Series: Prompts [11]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 19:32:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9622442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess
Summary: After the Citadel DLC, Renegade mShep is... not happy. Steve soothes his guy.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cypheroftyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cypheroftyr/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Lazarus, Again](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8812093) by [wargoddess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess). 



> From a prompt by Cypheroftyr, featuring (my conception of) her Renegade mShep. Written ages ago but posted here because she keeps reposting it on Tumblr and it's easier to find via AO3. :P

He heard the chatter before he reached the apartment, via the Inner Circle channel on the light-encryption subnet. _"Loco’s gone loco,“_ flashed the text from James, in the chatroom Knitting Tips.  They kept their chatter about Shepard there, on the theory that he wouldn’t bother looking at something so patently uninteresting.  Steve didn’t have the heart to tell them that a) Shepard loved knitting, and b) Shepard had been reading the chat logs from that room since Palaven.  As far as Steve could tell, Shepard didn’t actually care if the crew snarked about him behind his back.  He only read the logs – out loud, in bed, mimicking their fellow crew members’ voices while Steve tried to pretend he wasn’t listening until he dissolved into helpless snickering – for the badly-needed laugh.

But the affirmatives and _"Holy shitballs yeah, stay the fuck out of his way”_ responses that popped up on the channel made Steve wonder, so as he authorized his way into Shepard’s Citadel apartment, he was braced for anything.  Shepard wasn’t a nice guy.  He punched reporters, told the Council to fuck off every other day, lied to his friends, shot enemies in the face mid-monologue.  That didn’t at all fit the way he interacted with Steve. With Steve he spoke quietly, listened carefully, and his trademark scowls softened into frequent smiles.  Maybe he knew that Steve wouldn’t have tolerated being treated the way Shepard treated everyone else, or maybe he just genuinely cared more about what Steve thought of him.  Impossible to guess, but Steve liked that his guy was complex.  Made for interesting times, if nothing else.  

Like now, as Steve came into the apartment and heard what sounded like a pile driver echoing through its vaulted rooms.  Heavy, pounding sounds.  Irregular, though, and with an echo that finally made Steve realize there was no unscheduled construction taking place in the neighborhood:  grunting.  Heavy breaths.   _Angry_ heavy breaths.

From the downstairs guest bedroom.  Steve dropped his jacket on the kitchen island and swerved to follow the sound, knowing what he would find before he got there.  And sure enough, yeah, there was Steve’s Commander, stripped to the waist and bare-knuckled as he pounded his way through the heavy bag.  Another bag – misshapen, seams torn, half shredded – lay on the floor, where Shepard must have discarded it.  The new one was holding up well considering the sheer amount of force Shepard was pouring into each blow.  It was enough that he’d worked up a sweat, which wasn’t something that he did often; his implants usually vented excess body heat into his shielding.  Now, however, the floor around him was wet with shed droplets, and the top few centimeters of the drawstring workout pants he had on were damp.  And he was so deep in beating his heavy bag to pieces that he hadn’t even noticed Steve was there. 

Steve folded his arms and leaned against the bedroom doorsill, blatantly admiring… but also a little worried.  Shepard kept at it for another ten minutes, must’ve been at it for hours already, seemed inclined to keep going forever – but finally Steve had enough.  "Shep.“

The speed with which Shepard turned on him was breathtaking, as was the instant of pure menace in the man’s posture.  If Steve had been an enemy, he could tell at once, he would’ve been dead – swiftly and messily, given how often Steve had seen Shepard get up close and personal with his omni-blade on the battlefield.  Steve’s belly clenched before he could quite stop the reaction; pilot reflexes.  But a breath later the monster faded from Shepard’s expression, and he was just a man again.

”…Sorry,“ Shepard said, turning away a little and making a visible effort to relax.  This just emphasized how wound-up he was, though, because the effort wasn’t going well:  his shoulders were still tight, his fists uncurled only reluctantly, and a muscle in his jaw kept twitching.

"I’m sorry too,” Steve said, amused.  "I was enjoying the show.  But it looks like something’s bothering you, and that made it harder to enjoy.“

Shepard uttered a bitter chuckle, then strode over to the wall to pick up a towel folded there.  "Bothering me.  Yeah.  Fucking Cerberus.  Fucking _clones of me_.”

Yeah, that sounded about right.  Steve sighed.  "You’re angry that the clone stole the Normandy?“

"I’m angry that the clone _existed_.”  Shepard’s hands had clenched into fists again.  Not good.  A heavy bag’s life was on the line.  Making a disgusted noise, Shepard scrubbed at his face with the towel.  Steve uncurled from the wall, coming over and taking the towel from Shepard’s hands.  The man’s skin hadn’t been upgraded by Cerberus, and at this rate he was going to rub himself raw.  

“For a minute there,” Steve said, reaching up to take over the task of wiping his face, “I thought you were going to help him.”  He’d seen the footage from the hangar bay.  Seen how Shepard had stared down at his clone in that final moment, jaw tight, fury in his eyes, foot lifted to stomp on clinging hands – but then Shepard had hesitated.  Not for long, but still.

Shepard was seeing that moment over again, too, obviously; his gaze was elsewhere, back then.  "I wanted to.“  The words came reluctantly, as if he was ashamed of them.  He turned away from Steve then, sharply.  "I fucking _wanted_ to.  But he started this war.  He could’ve changed his mind anywhere along the way, and he didn’t.  Nobody comes at me like that and lives.”

“Well, yeah,” Steve said, reaching up to take him by the shoulders.  The muscles were like rocks under his hands.  It was probably futile to try and massage them; Steve settled for stroking his shoulders instead, trying to soothe away the anger simmering under his skin.  "I would’ve expected a guy with your genes to know better.“

"Precisely."  Shepard took a deep breath, then another; a better sign.  He was trying again.

"Would’ve been nice,” Steve continued, “if he’d come to you instead of going along with Brooks’ plan.  He could’ve learned from you.  Helped you, even.”

“Maybe.”  But the tension was easing, finally, because Steve was saying what Shepard couldn’t, or maybe wouldn’t.  "Maybe he was too much like me.  I don’t play well with others.“

"Bullshit.”  Steve kissed the nape of his neck, smoothed hands down his arms.  "You have a whole crew that would fight through hell for you.  Actually, we _have_ fought through hell for you.“

Shepard waved a hand dismissively.  "That’s orders.  They know I’ll shoot them if they don’t obey.”

God, he was ridiculous.  Steve shook his head and stepped closer, sliding hands around his waist and pressing his cheek to one hot, tight shoulder.  "Everyone on this ship is pulling a hundred and ten percent because they believe in you.  They think you’re the only person who can stop this damned war.  Nobody does that just out of fear.“

He wasn’t watching Shepard’s face, but he felt the flex of muscle beneath his cheek.  "What if – ”  But then Shepard stopped.  He wasn’t the kind of man to speculate.  But Steve could hear that unvoiced anxiety.   _What if I can’t do it?  What if I needed him, that other me, to make it work?  If I can’t even get another me to work with me…_ Steve sighed in irritation.  One stupid clone had become the living embodiment of all Shepard’s doubts.  Well.  The dead embodiment, rather.

There was nothing Steve could say to this.  Shepard was Shepard; even if he had doubts, he would go forward.  That was what he did.  All Steve could do was try to go forward with him, and fend off a little of the trouble, and make some small part of his life easier.

 _Such a burden,_ he thought to himself, smiling.  Smoothing hands up Shepard’s belly, he pressed himself against Shepard’s back and opened his mouth to graze teeth along his upper trapezius.  "Glad your clone didn’t come at me,“ he murmured, watching Shepard closely.  He could only see the side of the man’s face, but he caught the moment when Shepard’s thoughts switched over from _that guy_ and _then_ to _this guy_ and _now_.  "I’d have been pissed.  I don’t want some imposter, I want the full Shepard.  Every inch."  He hoped that sounded like an innuendo, because it was.

"Really?”  Flex and shift of skin beneath his hands and lips as Shepard glanced back; yeah, that was interest.  Good.  Steve suppressed a smile and began sliding his hands back down, slowly, toward Shepard’s pants.  "I don’t think I’ve ever seen you angry, Steve.“

At that, Steve’s hands faltered, along with his smile.  "You have, actually,” he said, softly.  "Maybe it looked like grief.“

A tightening of Shepard’s belly.  He put a hand over Steve’s.  "Sorry.”

Steve shook his head.  "Don’t be.“  He stepped around Shepard, finally, tired of the seduction game.  Shepard was focused wholly on him now, eyes dark with… something.  He was so different from Robert, Steve thought for the thousandth time.  Robert had been an open book, and lovably boring.  Shepard was what everyone thought aliens should be – unpredictable, almost incomprehensible.  And intense.  But maybe this was the kind of man Steve needed most, in these uncertain days:  someone who maybe decided what he wanted on impulse, but then took it and held it with all the fire of his being.  There was a kind of security in that, or at least a feeling of rewarded risk.  Shepard might be a thrill a minute, but he was the surest thing going in Steve’s life.

Yeah.  "C'mon,” Steve said then, feeling impulsive himself.  He hooked fingers over the drawstring of Shepard’s pants and walked backward, pulling him toward the bed.

Shepard, to Steve’s relief, did not smile.  This was serious business.  But he did stop and steer Steve in a different direction, toward the wall, instead.  He pressed Steve back against it – not rough but firm.  Decisive.  His eyes searched Steve’s, checking; it wasn’t hard to guess what he wanted, given his mood.  He’d always been gentle with Steve before, but he didn’t want gentle now.  There was a promise in the way his eyes roamed Steve’s body, a twitch of anticipation in his hands, a plan in the way he licked his lips.  All the strength that he’d poured into destroying one and a half heavy bags, all the endurance that had kept him at it for hours: Steve could have that, right now, if he said yes.  Up against the wall, Shepard’s weight pinning him, arms hooked under his legs –

Steve swallowed, surprised by how _hot_ this thought was.   _Not one moment wasted.  Yeah.  Okay._  He tugged off his shirt and reached for Shepard, and Shepard came, and for awhile they both forgot all the world’s madness, together.

**Author's Note:**

> For the clone's side of things, see http://archiveofourown.org/works/8812093


End file.
